


'Twas Dearly Bought

by kalypsobean



Category: The Firm (TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, Knifeplay, M/M, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:39:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8920969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: In order to cement the trust of his men, Joey must get his revenge on Mitch.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



He owes everybody something, Joey does, or at least it can feel that way. And, conversely, everybody he knows owes him, in some way or another. Sometimes, people think he owes them, or that they owe him, and it's because of his father, or his position, or just that they feel they should because it prevents it becoming the other way around later on.

And then there are the Russians, who definitely don't owe him anything.

And then there is Mitch.

 

Most people Joey finds himself surrounded with feel that Mitch owes him. It's a strange kind of debt, not a favour that Mitch must return, but a debt of honour, in that Mitch took something and in return, must give something of his own. It is an equaliser, a tool Joey saw his father use and didn't always understand. It was lost on a small boy that the appearance of justice, also known as revenge, could be more important than reaching a mutually acceptable arrangement otherwise, or that a personal touch could be valued more openly than trusting the system built to take care of such things.

It feels more equal to pull Mitch into the life, now that he's solidly situated on his own, than it does to have him killed and move on. 

 

"You can't tell anyone about this," Mitch says, when the pressure is so much that Joey doubts he can hold his men back, even though Mitch has done everything Joey has asked of him so far. 

"Someone has to know," Joey says. "That's the point."

Mitch doesn't have a way to argue with that. Joey can tell, from the way Mitch looks away, that he both understands this, and doesn't like it.

"Alright," Mitch says. That is all Joey needs. 

 

It wasn't easy to convince the men to protect Mitch. They still saw him as weak, somehow, as if taking a cannon that had been firing at you and turning it around, when on a battlefield with the result in question, was never an option. They had grown up the same way as Joey, but had never had reason to doubt how things were done, had never tried to get out or looked at their world from the outside. 

It was time to correct that. Mitch agreeing meant he too, on some level, understood that it was necessary; that there are things that are done to prevent worse things from happening.

 

"Nobody can know," Mitch says, again, when Joey lets him in. Of course, he's been seen; Joey always has men outside now, since the Russians apparently don't have as much respect for personal boundaries as Joey's predecessors and their enemies did. Word will spread, regardless, and Joey knows that Mitch knows that. But Mitch's family won't know; that is important to Mitch, and Joey was taught to leave families out of business.

Besides, most of what he intends will heal in a day, two at most. The men would rather he carve his initials into Mitch's forehead, and even that might not be compromise enough. Joey sometimes thinks he could give in and have Mitch killed and it wouldn't be enough.

He wants that kind of loyalty.

 

The thing about going to college is that it was as much of an education as working up from the bottom would have been, if that had been the route he was forced on. He suspects he knows more about the market than the men he sends to run it, more about how it works on the ground than his father ever did. He learned other things, too; he managed college, but not to get away entirely. It was a small price to pay; he didn't have to do anything but watch and listen, his father paid tuition, and some of the less savoury tasks were given gravity by the presence of the boss' son. It was a power play, too; the first time one of the men, faceless in his mind, threatened to give him the knife as if it were a more dire threat than death, or the blade in the control of the person employed to use it, he felt something.

He hated it.

 

Yet here he was, a few years later, and he was prepared to go that far.

"You're sure?" he says. "You could stay here, read depositions or whatever it is you actually do."

"I'm sure, Joey," Mitch says. "You said it was best." He puts his bag on the floor, and folds his jacket on top of it.

"Okay then," Joey says. He doesn't wait for Mitch to fully stand up before pressing him into the wall; the angle will jar Mitch's shoulder, giving him pain without much of a mark. If he's lucky, he'll have put pressure on a nerve, and Mitch's arm will go numb. 

He expects words from Mitch but instead he gets silence; it makes testing Mitch's skin harder, because he has to go by sight, and sometimes that isn't so easy. The shirt was thin and came away easily enough, one rip and he was able to pull it away. He likes that part, especially on Mitch, he finds; he likes the moment where the fabric comes away to show the skin underneath, and the two colours are next to each other, one torn and one waiting to be defiled.

He also likes how easy it is to bring up a line of red, right along the dip in the middle there; it starts as white, standing out from golden tan skin, and slowly fades to pink. Sometimes it raises straight away, and other times he has to wait for the blood to come through, but with Mitch he won't go that far; it's just there, underneath the skin, out of his reach.

He shakes his head, dismissing thoughts of next time as he steps away. Mitch has been face into the wall, and Joey leans in, pressing his entire body along Mitch's, knowing somehow that the feel of his suit, much finer than anything Mitch can afford, is far worse than what he's already given. 

"That's all," he says, and steps back. He doesn't trust himself to do more, though he would love to; the handle is warm in his palm, as if it is an extension of him. At the most technical, he has taken his father's price in Mitch's flesh, the way it's always been done. 

 

He half waits for Mitch to tell him not to stop, but it doesn't come. Mitch stays against the wall as if it's holding him up, and it takes Joey offering to lend him a pullover to get him to come back. Accepting looks good on Mitch, and sending him away with different clothes will only help the illusion. The shellshocked expression does too, and the slight stumble as he dresses and walks to the door at the same time, like he can't wait even a few seconds to establish his own space.

He's careful not to look down; he doesn't want to know, in case it doesn't happen again, and he decides he wants it to.

 

"Not a word," Joey promises, and watches Mitch go, his bag and jacket still in the entryway.


End file.
